The Deal Closes When It Closes

Trevor worked many years ago with a top producing loan officer at a mortgage Bank. This top-producer brought in a lot of business and Trevor was the new kid on the block climbing the ladder, building his business. In his travels, Trevor met a local real estate attorney who could potentially refer business. Trevor had been working with that attorney on a home purchase transaction. The attorney said, “Oh, no, that’s where you work? I’ll never do business with your company because so-and-so is a nightmare and your company is a nightmare.” That other top-producing loan officer had a terrible reputation. This loan officer had a bad habit of not responding to anybody’s phone calls inquiring asking, “What’s going on with the deal? When is it closing?”  He simply did not answer phone calls. This was in the days before email, the days of beepers and telephones and he simply did not respond to anyone. The attorney told Trevor, “I beep this guy all the time, he never calls me back. I guess your company is just slow to get things done that’s why he doesn’t respond. Why should I expect you’d be any different?” So when Trevor confronted his fellow loan officer about this complaint, his response was very laid back.  He said, “I have one philosophy. The deal closes when it closes.” WOW. He made Trevor and the entire company look bad. On the positive side of the story, he kind of wasn’t wrong because there is a process to getting a loan approved and closed. The fact that he was a terrible communicator is a different issue entirely; he never spent any time communicating to manage expectations. We did a video on managing expectations, emphasizing follow up. Sometimes the timeline to close can really be a bit much, and especially with how many people are involved in the loan process. We’re working now on a business acquisition deal, and the sellers were involved. They just could not get their head around what was needed, even after the loan was approved, and they knew the Lender was going to do this deal. Their responses to requests for documents through the entire process were, “Why this? Why that?”  Week after week, all they did was push back. The Seller’s  attitude was constantly to fight the process.  Then, when they’d actually submit a document at 10 a.m. in the morning, they’d follow up by sending an email at 1:30 in the afternoon, “So when are we closing?” This is not really understanding the loan process either. So, to take that “top-producer-bad-communicator’s” phrase and reconfigure it,  “The deal closes when it closes.” There is a real process to achieving the loan approval and getting to the closing. As  long as all parties are communicating and cooperating, it will close in a reasonable time, but it doesn’t mean it’s closing in 10 minutes.  Communication and cooperation, those are key elements. For our part, we maintain clear communications. As often as this particular seller was impatient, we still kept a clear head and kept our communications positive, responded accordingly.  Ultimately, we got what we wanted from the seller in the way of documents we needed. We did another video describing how the lender reviews everything. If you spend so much time asking, “Why?” And spending so much energy fighting the process when you could have gotten what was needed to expedite the process. With this particular seller it was constantly “When are we closing?” and, “Where’s my money?” We understand how financial professionals can get jaded. Someone like the former colleague in the industry can say to themselves, “Okay, I’m kind of exhausted with these calls.”  And they shut down because they know the deal will close when it closes. People can get upset about the process, but when all is said and done, if there’s clear communication, you have to understand the process and you have to be patient.

The Scorsese Way

Martin Scorsese has had a long and storied career in cinema.  The legend he has created is that of the Director using his extensive knowledge of film to enhance his cinematic creations. As a Director, he pushed the boundaries of macabre crime drama.

Along the way, according to this latest biographical feature in the New York Times, Mr. Scorsese developed his own way of working within, or rather, without, the “Hollywood machine.”  In particular, Mr. Scorsese created a separate path for financing his films using independent financiers and eschewing the financial support from the studios.

Frustrated with the unrealistic pressures of working within the confines of the studio system, he came to believe that Hollywood studios had become his “mortal enemies.”

As he says in the NYTimes piece, “It’s like being in a bunker and you’re firing out in all directions…you begin to realize you’re not speaking the same language anymore, so you can’t make pictures anymore.”

The latest development in the “Scorsese Way” of making his movies is his partnership with Netflix, the streaming service that is about as far from the Hollywood studio system as you can get in the early 21st Century.

We think the key element of this aspect of Martin Scorsese’s story is the financing component.  In short, those folks with the money–Hollywood Studios–brought unrealistic expectations, exerted extraordinary pressures, and ultimately hampered one of the greatest cinematic talents of the past 100 years from achieving his true potential.

We see this time and again with Small and Middle Market Businesses too.

If your business marches in the “big leagues” that is, with gross revenues exceeding $3Billion annually, then Bankers are the friendliest bunch of people on the planet. But if your business is in the Middle–$10 Million up to $3 Billion in revenue—or worse, a Small Business (below the $10M mark), you’ll find Bankers are not so friendly.  

To define friendly, let’s refer to our description above of the Hollywood Studio system’s treatment of the incredibly talented and successful Martin Scorsese.  In the NYTimes piece he discusses the unrealistic pressures from studio executives (the folks with the money) to shorten movie running times, and other extraordinary requirements for his films, “The last two weeks of editing…‘The Aviator’…I said if this is the way you have to make films then I’m not going to do it anymore.”

Imagine that.  Imagine the cultural and entertainment loss sustained when a talent as large and ambitious as Mr. Scorsese decides he’s had enough because the people with the money keep telling him what to do.

We blogged recently about “Don’t Tell Me How To Make My Pizza” about a similar story about an ambitious and creative young business owner.  He’s created a unique new type of sourdough pizza.  As he grows his business, he needs capital.  But he chose to bring in equity investors instead of engaging with us at Aurora Consulting to find quality credit financing.  You can be sure that sometime in the near future his equity “partners” seeking higher returns on their investments, will insist on changes to that unique pizza recipe.  Martin Scorsese all over again.

It’s the New Year and we’re committed here at Aurora Consulting to financing solutions for your business success story.  We believe in access to credit.  We’ll work diligently and enthusiastically to find the best credit financing solutions for your business.  

Take a page out of the Martin Scorsese playbook (except the part where they dump the bodies!), and find your own “Scorsese Way” to finance your working capital needs while preserving your vision of how your business should run and grow.

Download our DOCUMENTS CHECKLIST here.

The Lender Reviews Everything

When you apply for financing and your tax returns and/or personal financial statement shows that you have interests in other businesses or property, the lender will want to review the financials on those other businesses.

When it comes down to it, the Lender has the right to ask for this information.

The question from our client is often, “Why is this germane to my financing request for my business?  That other business has nothing to do with the business I’m financing.”

While this may be true, remember that you’re asking the lender to assess the risk of lending money to you and to your business (the one on the application), and if there are negative aspects to your other businesses that affect the financial health of this business, the lender wants to assess that risk.

The good news is that you can control the narrative to an extent. Describe what the other business is via a summary statement and how it interacts with the business you are financing.  Especially with regards to debt.

There’s nothing wrong with full disclosure.  Get it out of the way upfront. Don’t wait for the Lender to ask for it.

Understand why the Lender wants that information instead of fighting the request.

The Lender has the right to ask these questions.  Pushing back is okay, as long as you do so in a gentle fashion.  In the end, it’s about achieving your goal of obtaining the financing you need to grow your business with the least muss and fuss as possible.

Download your “HOMEWORK”! You’ll thank us later.

Stop worrying about what's required when pursuing a business loan for your small business. This list will indicate what a lender, bank, SBA, etc. will want to know about you and your small business if you're looking for a business loan. These are prudent documents that help tell your small business story. Without them, it's difficult for lenders to assess you as a risk when it comes to lending your small business money. This is NOT SPECIFIC to the SBA EIDL loan.

Two Most Important Documents

There are two documents that are the most important documents that you should include and have ready for immediate access whenever applying for financing.

First and foremost, your current Year-To-Date (YTD) Income Statement. At Aurora Business Consulting, we believe you should be updating your YTD Income Statement every quarter, but it couldn’t hurt to update it every month. With automated bookkeeping software, creating a quick YTD Income Statement should be easy to accomplish.

The second important document to have at the ready is a comprehensive marketing plan. We don’t mean a one or two page marketing statement.  A comprehensive marketing plan with a full assessment of your marketing action plan, including specific strategies, Situational Analysis, demographics, SWOT analysis and cost analysis and expected outcomes is the recommended document to have at the ready.

Realistically your marketing plan should already be in place as a foundational element of your business operations.  In the event you need to apply for financing, and if there are changes to your marketing plan, you need only update the plan accordingly.  Especially if the financing request involves working capital for marketing expenses, or equipment purchases for the potential increased business revenues generated by your new marketing vision.

Why a marketing plan when you’re applying for financing? You know your objectives on maintaining and growing your business; the lender wants to know your objectives also.

With these two important documents, when you present the marketing plan and the income statement promptly and efficiently, it says something about your way of conducting business. You’re sending a clear signal to the Lender about the high quality methods you use to run your business; you’re giving the Lender a sense of “comfort” about the risk assessment on your financing request.

What if your financials are weak in certain areas for the last couple of years? The Marketing Plan also could potentially overcome some objections the lender has to something that’s weak in your financials.

The marketing plan shows the way you’re going to increase revenue either by something you’re doing already or something you plan to do which is why you’re applying for working capital or equipment capital.

Streamline Your Financing Request

Want to become a priority with the banker?

Summarizing your financing package can help to prioritize how your banker reviews your financing request.

We recently submitted a client’s financing request to one of the Lenders on our lending matrix.  Our Lender Rep. said, “Holy cow, you guys are on top of it with your summary. Not many brokers make it this easy to review the package.”

We made it easy because the client provided us with their financials. The financials were comprehensive. It’s a multi-million dollar corporation and we’re at the early stage of presenting to the lender. We want to show something that’s easily digestible. We want to ease  the process for the lender to give us a prompt review and tell us their interest in offering the financing.

Summarizing your financials is easy to do.  When you have a lot of line items that lead up to one, just one, type of deduction or one type of income source, simply summarize it. Drop it down to as few lines as possible so the lender can do a quick review and say,  “Okay, I see the picture here.”

The Lender doesn’t need to know the granular line by line details at this early stage; you want the Lender to give a fast review to gauge their interest. If the Lender expresses interest and offers a Letter of Intent for the financing, you can present the more detailed financials with your full loan application package.

For each financing request, present a one or two page statement describing the background of the business, the reason for their financing request, and, in bold, large font, the amount of our financing request.

Our presentation package for the initial Lender review is compact yet complete.  The “first glimpse” by a Lender is sufficient to tell us if that particular Lender is the right fit for our client’s request, or if we need to locate a different Lender.

Visit our Financing Fodder YouTube Playlist on how to prepare your business loan request.

Lessons, Lenders, Decisions and Documents

Lessons with Lenders and Decision with Documents

When we locate the right Lender to provide a financing solution for your capital needs, the Lender requests documents as part of the application process.  We prefer to collect and review as many documents as possible early in our qualifying process.

We review each document you submit.  We do this to determine your business’ qualifications for the different financing products available through our matrix of Lenders.  But we also review your documents to look for any issues that might arise in the financing request and to resolve those issues before we submit your request to a Lender. Not all Lenders require all these documents, and occasionally we prefer to submit certain documents only after a detailed conversation with a Lender.

The definition of a successful Loan Application is the approval you want, the approval you need, and the approval that meets your timeline.

Early on in our long experience working in the financial services industry, we learned the lessons of successful applications:

Lesson 1: The Application can make or break the deal.  The Application is the source of all information and, ultimately, the guidepost for processing and Underwriting.  The more complete and accurate an Application, the better the Underwriting RESULT.  That RESULT is not only an approval, but a timely one.  The complete Application typically anticipates the Underwriter’s thinking and answers questions before they’re asked.

Lesson 2: It’s all about the paper.  Yes, even in the 21st Century (is it time yet to say, “Beam me up, Scotty?”), you have to support your Application with documents.

Lesson 3: The front-loader.  When you submit your Application with a complete basic set of documents at the onset, your process moves much quicker along to the goal line.

Lesson 4: Give ’em what they need, not what they want. Many times a Lender and/or Underwriter will ask for more documents than are necessary.  We’ve learned time and again to push-back on certain documents requests.  Often, we’ll ask the Underwriter for a valid reason for the document request.  Piling more documents into the Application package simply because they “want it” slows down your approval timeline.  You’d be surprised with how many times a requested document isn’t actually needed for the loan approval.

Lesson 5: Garbage in, garbage out.  A single document, presented incorrectly, can torpedo your financing request.  At the very least, a document that presents a challenge to the loan approval process should be presented with an accurate explanation, whether the document provides a positive or negative aspect to the entirety of the Application.  We learned long ago the value of the phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

Lesson 6: Underwriting is Subjective.  Underwriting is more a subjective than an objective process. You want your Application to move quickly through the system for one important reason: don’t give the Underwriter time to develop a dislike for your Application.  When an Underwriter can move efficiently and quickly through a Loan Application, they don’t have time to develop negative opinions about the Application. The lingering-loan-application simply provides an Underwriter with more time to excessively scrutinize details that may not really be negative, but can develop into a negative aspect in the Underwriter’s subjective way of thinking.  You know, they’re human too.

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel and check out our video on DIY your Business Loan Application.

Visit our Financing Fodder YouTube Playlist for more information on how to prepare yourself when requesting a business loan.

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Don’t Tell Me How To Make My Pizza!

We had a conversation with one of our Real Estate Broker Extraordinaire friends about all things business-related and, more specifically, about PIZZA.  She loves pizza similar to one of us here at Aurora Consulting (we’ll let you guess which one).

The chat happened while discussing an innovative pizza-restaurateur who created a wonderful and completely yummy pizza product.  This brilliant entrepreneur has come to realize his business is growing so rapidly that he suddenly finds himself in need of working capital to fund an expansion simply to keep up with the growth.

Good problem to have…except for the seeking working capital part.

The money part is where it gets challenging for this smart young pizza-entrepreneur.  He faces an important choice while facing the money challenge.

Should he search for a Lender to provide credit financing, or, surrender part of his business to an equity investor?

At Aurora Consulting, we believe this question has a simple answer.

Why surrender equity, and cede control, when you might very well find a credit solution to obtain the much needed working capital?  Yes, the answer is a question!  Or, the answer to the pizza-entrepreneur’s question can better be stated with the retort, “Don’t tell me how to make my pizza!”

Bringing in an equity investor for any growing business could (someday sooner or later) lead to your equity investor asserting control with how the business should be run.  That opinion could include, for this innovative pizza entrepreneur, suggestions on how to adjust the unique pizza recipe, you know, to make the product more cost-efficient.

Or the opinion from the new “partner” could be any number of other ideas, suggestions, opinions, plans, assertions, on growing the business, you know, to be more profitable.

That equity investor may have no idea at all about how to make pizza.

Many business owners are concerned with the idea of credit financing.  Let’s face it, credit financing can scare the heck out of many people.  Thank you to the global credit bust and subsequent recession for that anxiety-filled-ideation.  Borrowing money from a Lender, whether a traditional bank, or a non-traditional portfolio lender, is often a much more tranquil experience than you might think.

The question becomes one of finding the right lender.  The question never, ever, ever, becomes one of, “Hey, how about we use this ingredient in the pizza recipe instead of your original because this ingredient is cheaper and our product will be more profitable?”

Yeah, that question.  It’s not going to happen when you finance your capital cash needs with the right loan product and the right lender.

Visit our Financing Fodder YouTube Playlist for more information on how to prepare yourself when requesting a business loan.